Huawei distributors, staff reportedly involved in bribery

Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies announced at an anti-corruption conference that some of its staff members and distributors had been involved in serious bribery cases, according to a report Tuesday.

The conference was held at the beginning of September by Huawei for its employees and distributors, during which it said that a total of 116 Huawei staff members and 69 distributors had been involved in corruption in China as of August 16, with the largest bribery incident involving over 100 million yuan ($16.29 million), Shanghai-based newspaper China Business News reported on Tuesday.

Huawei sales staff allegedly took bribes from distributors and in return offered discounts on products and services to the distributors, financial news portal caixin.com reported on Tuesday.

Huawei confirmed with the Global Times that the anti-corruption conference was held in Shenzhen, but declined to comment more about the event.

"Bribery and corruption sometimes happen in the [telecom] sector," an insider who has been a salesman in the sector for around 10 years and asked to be unnamed, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

For instance, salesmen may offer bribes to distributors to increase the sales of products, but sometimes distributors will bribe salesmen to get more products, according to the insider.

Caixin attributed the corruption to fierce competition among sales agents and Huawei sales staffs' power to give discounts to distributors.

The insider said Huawei has already played a leading role in launching investigations on corruption, adding that zero tolerance for corruption is one of the key factors of Huawei's success.

"All staff members at Huawei read out a written commitment to reject corruption each year," a staff member of Huawei, who declined to be named, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The staff said he did not have any details about the conference, but said Huawei has always had strict anti-bribery policies since he joined the company in 2008.

Huawei's top executives also hold an anti-bribery meeting each year, the staff noted.

An insider was quoted by the newspaper as saying that Huawei is facing a predicament in the devices sector as it needs to keep on expanding fast but also monitor its development.